Pánfilo de Narváez

Pánfilo de Narváez
Pánfilo de Narváez
Born	1478
Died	1528-50 Florida
Cause of death	Drowning
Nationality	Spanish
Occupation	Spanish Conquistador and Explorer
Employer	Spain
Salary	Permission to settle and rule the land from northern Mexico to the Florida peninsula

Pánfilo de Narváez (147?–1528) was a Spanish conquistador and soldier in the Americas. Born in Spain, he first embarked to Jamaica in 1510 as a soldier. He came to participate in the conquest of Cuba and led an expedition to Camagüey escorting Bartolomé de las Casas. Las Casas described him as exceedingly cruel towards the natives.

He is most remembered as the leader of two failed expeditions: In 1520 he was sent to Mexico by the Governor of Cuba Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, with the objective of stopping the invasion by Hernán Cortés which had not been authorized by the Governor. Even though his 900 men outmanned those of Cortés 3 to 1, Narváez was outmaneuvered and taken prisoner. During the battle, Cortés had stabbed out one of his eyes. After a couple of years in captivity in Mexico he returned to Spain where King Carlos V named him adelantado with authority to explore and colonize Florida. In 1527 Narváez embarked for Florida with five ships and 600 men, among them Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca who later described the expedition in his Naufragios. A storm south of Cuba wrecked several of the ships; the rest of the expedition continued on to Florida, where the men were eventually stranded among hostile natives. The survivors worked their way along the US gulf coast trying to get to the province of Pánuco. During a storm Narváez and a small group of men were carried out to sea on a raft and were not seen again. Only four men survived the Narváez expedition.

Pánfilo de Narváez was born in Castile (in either Cuéllar or Valladolid) in 1470 or 1478. He was a relative of Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, the first Spanish governor of Cuba. His nephew was Antonio Velázquez de Narváez. Bartolomé de las Casas described him as "a man of authoritative personality, tall of body and somewhat blonde inclined to redness"